FROM-THE- LIBRARY- OF 
•KONRAD-BURDACH- 


GOETHE 

BY 

JAMES    TAFT    HATFIELD 

Reprinted  from  the  "Methodist  Review"  for  September,  1S99 


YORK: 

1899 


WITH  THE  COMPLIMENTS  OF 


JAMES  T.  HATFIELD, 


EVANSTON 


ILLINOIS. 


1899.]  Gotthe.          _  767 


AET.  IX.— GOETHE. 

EMERSON,  describing  his  visit  to  Wordsworth,  in  1833,  says: 
"  He  proceeded  to  abuse  Goethe's  Wilhelm  Meister  heartily. 
It  was  full  of  all  manner  of  fornication.  .  .  .  He  had  never 
gone  farther  than  the  first  part ;  so  disgusted  was  he  that  he 
threw  the  book  across  the  room."  *  Wordsworth  is  by  no 
means  the  only  judge  who  has  "  never  gone  farther  than  the 
first  part,"  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  great  writer  has 
ever  been  approached  with  more  prejudice.  In  more  recent 
years  some  of  the  blame  may  perhaps  be  laid  upon  the  Ger- 
mans themselves,  who,  especially  since  the  Franco-Prussian 
War,  have  often  taken  on  an  air  as  though  Goethe  had  ex- 
hausted poetry,  and  as  though  the  English-speaking  world 
must  look  to  Germany  for  all  literary  ideals ;  whereas,  every 
great  literary  and  intellectual  uplift  in  Germany,  and  by  no 
means  least  in  the  case  of  Goethe  himself,  goes  back  directly 
to  England.  The  depredators  of  Goethe  are  not  usually  those 
who  have  come  to  know  him  at  first  hand,  and  they  are  re- 
sponsible for  much  suffering  from  that  chief  of  all  earthly 
trials,  the  dogmatism  of  the  uninstructed.  He  never  conde- 
scended to  charlatanism  in  order  to  attract  the  masses,  and  he 
made  use  of  difficult  allegory  in  conveying  recondite  truths. 

We  must  follow  Goethe  historically,  remembering  that  his 
youth  was  stormy  and  unclarified  ;  we  must  take  into  account 
the  most  varied  and  apparently  contradictory  manifestations, 
and  deduce  our  result  from  the  sum  total.f  The  purpose 
must  be  separated  from  the  subject-matter ;  the  works  were 
written  boldly  and  freely,  and  must  be  received  and  interpreted 
in  the  same  spirit  which  attended  their  birth.  Problematical 
natures  are  often  delineated,  as  in  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare, 
who  gives  us  the  best  key  to  the  interpretation  of  our  poet. 
Nor  must  we  forget  his  own  desire  : 

Whom  do  I  wish  for  my  reader  ?     The  one  most  candid,  forgetting 
Me,  himself,  and  the  world ;  wholly  absorbed  in  my  work.  J 

Certain  it  is  that  the  mighty  personality  of  Goethe  is  one  of 

»  Works,  v,  24. 

tComp.  Harnack,  Goethein  der  Epoche seiner  VoUendung,  p.  201. 

t  VierJahreszeiten,  No.  62. 


768  Methodist  Review.  [September, 

the  great  possessions  of  our  race,  and  not  yet  to  be  dispensed 
with.  The  more  important  men  who  have  devoted  themselves 
to  German  literary  studies — such  as  Carlyle,  Wilhelm  Scherer, 
Herman  Grimm,  and  Erich  Schmidt — have  been  attracted 
irresistibly  and  more  and  more  exclusively  to  Goethe  as  the 
central  fact,  just  as  every  sincere  student  of  art  becomes  more 
and  more  subject  to  the  influence  of  the  Greeks.  While  it  is 
a  most  costly  thing  to  attempt  to  maintain  decaying  relics  of 
bygone  ages,  there  are  heritages  the  loss  of  which  would  sen- 
sibly impoverish  mankind. 

Goethe's  genius  is,  before  all,  a  poetic  and  artistic  one.  "  It 
was  for  gesthetic  ends  that  I  was  created,"  he  said  in  a  conver- 
sation with  Friedrich  von  Miiller.*  From  his  works  alone 
may  be  deduced  a  firmly  grounded  system  of  normal  aesthetics. 
The  pure  beauty  of  his  art  is  perennial,  and 

Still  will  keep 

A  bower  quiet  for  us,  and  a  sleep 
Full  of  sweet  dreams,  and  health,  and  quiet  breathing. 

How  immense  his  literary  debt  to  England,  even  in  the  so- 
called  "  German  "  element  of  Gemutlichlceit,  need  not  be  dis- 
cussed here.  In  the  period  of  his  creative  maturity  he  is  par- 
ticularly the  prophet  of  Hellenism  in  art  and  letters,  f  After 
the  most  varied  attempts  and  studies  his  artistic  theories  be- 
came settled  into  a  firm  conviction  that  Greek  art  embodies 
the  noblest  simplicity  and  quiet  greatness,  and  gives  perma- 
nent and  absolute  canons  of  literary  excellence,  combining 
naturalness  and  high  culture,  freedom  and  law.  He  says  : 

Clearness  of  vision,  cheerfulness  of  acceptance,  easy  grace  of  expres- 
sion, are  the  qualities  which  delight  us;  and  now,  when  we  affirm  that 
we  find  all  these  in  the  genuine  Grecian  works,  achieved  in  the  noblest 
material,  the  best-proportioned  form,  with  certainty  and  completeness  of 
execution,  we  shall  always  be  understood  if  we  refer  to  them  as  a  basis 
and  a  standard.  Let  each  one  be  a  Grecian  in  his  own  way ;  but  let  him 
be  one.  J 

A  concise  putting  of  his  final  creed  is  contained  in  the 
little  poetical  dedications — a  feature  borrowed  by  Emerson 

*  January  20,1824. 

t  Michaelis,  Goethe  und  die  Antike,  Strassburger  Goethevortruge,  115  ff. 

$  Quoted  by  Professor  Jebb  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  Ixxii,  552. 


1899.]  Goethe.  769 

for  his  essays — prefixed  to  his  treatise  on  Art  and  Antiquity, 
1821: 

Homer  has  long  been  named  with  p.-aise, 
And  Phidias  in  these  later  days. 
Against  the  two  none  may  contend ; 
This  truth  no  mortal  should  offend. 

Be  ye  welcomed,  noble  strangers, 
By  each  truly  German  mind : 
Only  in  the  Best  and  Highest 
Can  the  soul  true  profit  find. 

This  gospel  of  Greek  art  was  preached  with  a  call  for  enthusi- 
asm and  devotion,  but  with  a  demand  for  severe  disciplinary 
preparation  and  slow  training,  as  in  the  days  of  art  under 
Pericles  or  the  Medici.  This  element  preserved  Goethe  from 
the  unsound  tendencies  of  the  most  modern  "  return  to  na- 
ture." He  seeks  nature  where  it  is  most  healthy  and  beautiful ; 
the  crying  evil  of  the  present  naturalistic  movement  is  that  it 
chooses  the  vile  and  the  unlovely  as  an  end  to  its  efforts,  and  art 
thereby  defeats  its  own  chief  purpose.  Goethe's  feeling  for 
the  wholesomeness,  vigor,  and  moderation  of  the  Greeks  pro- 
tected him  from  sickly  pessimism  and  brutal  naturalism. 

For  Goethe's  great  service  to  the  national  literature  lay 
chiefly  in  the  fact  that  he  did  "return  to  nature.  He  holds  the 
mirror  up  in  a  way  that  only  Shakespeare  has  surpassed,  and 
of  all  natural  phenomena  the  soul  of  man  claims  his  chief 
interest,  as  is  especially  shown  in  his  dramatic  characters. 
From  the  Heath-rose  and  Wertfar,  both  created  for  an  age 
that  needed  "heart"  above  all  things,  to  the  end  of  his  life 
his  works  come  forth  from  a  full,  warm  feeling ;  they  are 
strong,  genuine  impressions,  put  into  symmetrical  form.  He 
often  emphasizes  the  preeminence  of  truth  in  art :  "  The  inner 
content  of  the  object  to  be  elaborated  is  the  beginning  and  end 
of  art ; " *  "I  do  all  honor  to  rhyme  and  rhythm,  but  the 
really  deep  and  effective,  the  truly  formative  and  inspiring 
part  of  a  poet's  work,  is  that  which  still  remains  after  it  has 
been  translated  into  prose ; "  f  "  All  talent  is  wasted  if  it  be 
spent  upon  an  unworthy  object."  \  Those  who  see  in  our 

*Dichtung  tind  Wahrheit,  vii. 

t/d.,xt. 

t  Conversations  with  Eckermann,  1, 56. 


770  Methodist  Review.  [September, 

artist  one  who  sacrificed  content  and  purpose  to  aesthetic 
beauty  err  grievously.  "Art  for  art's  sake"  in  its  narrower 
sense  had  for  him  no  meaning.  With  all  the  joyousness  and 
grace  and  charm  of  his  art,  he  wrought  his  apparently  most 
casual  work  with  an  underlying  purpose  of  "asserting  eter- 
nal Providence  and  justifying  the  ways  of  God  to  men." 
He  well  terms  his  "epigrammatic"  poems  "the  sportive  em- 
bodiment of  profound  thought."  The  artistic  clearness,  seren- 
ity, and  repose  are  so  perfect  that  we  can  easily  forget  that  the 
artist  uses  all  these  qualities  as  the  expression  of  a  deep  intent. 
From  the  simplest  love  motive  to  the  profoundest  speculations 
in  philosophy  all  is  breathed  into  matchless  form,  symmetrical, 
melodious,  and  pure ;  largely  on  this  account  is  it  true  of  his 
works  that  "  the  human  race  takes  charge  of  them  that  they 
shall  not  perish."  The  realism  which  sees  clearly  the  facts  of 
life  is  joined  to  the  idealism  which  transmutes  facts  into  the 
higher'  truth.  Goethe's  sonnet  "Nature  and  Art"  (1802) 
sums  up  definitively  the  poet's  sesthetic  theory : 

Nature  and  art  seem  ofttimes  to  be  foes, 
But,  ere  we  know  it,  join  in  making  peace ; 
My  own  repugnance,  too,  has  come  to  cease,* 
And  each  an  equal  power  attractive  shows. 

Let  us  but  make  an  end  to  dull  repose : 
When  art  we  serve  in  toil  without  release, 
Through  stated  hours,  absolved  from  vain  caprice, 
Nature  once  more  within  us  freely  glows. 

All  culture,  as  I  hold,  must  take  this  course : 
Unbridled  spirits  ever  strive  in  vain 
Perfection's  radiant  summit  to  attain. 

Who  seeks  great  ends  must  straitly  curb  his  force ; 
In  narrow  bounds  the  master's  skill  shall  show, 
And  only  law  true  freedom  can  bestow. 

Even  Professor  du  Bois-Eeymond,  in  his  trenchant  attack 
upon  the  influence  of  Goethe,  f  calls  him  "  the  chief  lyric  poet 
of  all  time."  Goethe  emancipated  Germany  from  bondage  to 
the  "  correct " — of  which  he  said,  "  Correctness  is  not  worth 
sixpence  if  it  has  nothing  more  to  offer " — by  showing  the 

*  We  have  in  Werther  (Am  26.  Mai)  a  strong  expression  of  his  youthful  antipathy 
to  rules  in  matters  of  art. 
t  Goethe  und  kein  Ende,  1883,  p.  13. 


1899.]  Goethe.  771 

poetic  value  of  the  common,  natural  occurrences  of  life.  His 
poems  are  to  be  referred  to  definite  personal  experiences,  and 
come  from  the  depths  of  the  heart ;  they  are  the  necessary  out- 
let of  suppressed  emotions;  individual  experiences  are  ex- 
pressed in  so  vigorous  and  effective  a  way  that  they  become 
typical  of  a  whole  range  of  related  psychological  phenomena. 
He  finds  in  the  phases  of  nature  and  in  the  simple  figures  of 
daily  life  the  adequate  poetic  interpretation  of  the  moods  of 
the  soul.  His  poems,  "  woven  from  sunbeams  and  odors  of 
morning,"  have  a  musical  fullness  and  melody,  a  grace  and 
breeziness,  an  elfin  lightness  and  airiness,  an  irresistible  dra- 
matic power,  or  at  times  the  sweet  pathos  of  mournful  elegiac 
cadence.  They  refresh,  soothe,  charm,  alleviate,  stimulate,  and 
dissolve.  This  many-sidedness  belongs,  as  well,  to  the  dra- 
matic and  prose  works,  reflecting,  as  they  do,  the  different 
periods  of  the  poet's  life,  but  each  genuine  and  true  to  itself, 
and  each  at  the  summit  of  its  own  class,  whether  romantic, 
classic,  or  oriental,  contemporary  or  mediaeval.  It  is  a  tableau 
of  human  experience,  subject-matter  for  the  study  of  man- 
kind. His  prose  style  is  clear  and  luminous,  serene  in  its  har- 
mony, strong  and  uninterrupted  in  its  flow. 

Goethe  was  an  interpreter  of  human  life  in  the  fullest  sense. 
We  confess  to  a  certain  charity  toward  those  champions  of 
Christian  morals  who  discard  Goethe  altogether,  because  he  did 
not  at  all  times  practically  embody  the  principles  of  Christian 
ethics.  Such  a  standpoint  is  heroic,  in  being  willing  to  sacri- 
fice any  advantage  rather  than  give  up  the  one  thing  needful; 
but  the  alternative  seems  unnecessary,  and  is  based,  perhaps, 
on  too  narrow  an  interpretation  of  1  Cor.  ii,  2.  St.  Paul 
himself  made  much  use  of  worldly  learning,  and  had  a  wide 
knowledge  of  human  experience  which  particularly  fitted  him  to 
be  "  all  things  to  all  men ; "  he  confessed  himself  "  debtor  both 
to  the  Greeks,  and  to  the  Barbarians,"  and  commended  "  what- 
soever things  are  true."  There  is  danger  of  obscurantism 
in  dispensing  with  the  study  of  human  history  as  a  whole,  a 
danger  into  which  Luther  sometimes  fell,  as  when  he  de- 
nounced Aristotle  as  a  "damned,  insolent,  treacherous  heathen." 
The  sanest  truth  is  contained  in  the  words  of  Professor 
Dowden  : 


772  Methodist  Review.  [September, 

Such  an  oceanic  writer  as  Schiller  or  Goethe  may  contain  within  his 
vastness  some  things  that  belong  to  the  rankness  and  garbage  of  the 
earth ;  but  so  antiseptic  is  his  large  and  free  vitality,  played  upon  by 
the  sun  and  breeze,  so  wholesome  is  his  invigorating  saltness,  that  we 
may  dash  fearlessly  across  the  breakers,  and  quit  his  sands  and  shallows 
for  a  gleeful  adventure  in  the  deep.* 

Psychological  knowledge  is  a  chief  aim  of  Goethe-studies ; 
he  was  both  universal  and  impressionable.  Applicable  are  his 
own  youthful  words  in  regard  to  Shakespeare  :  f 

That  which  is  termed  evil  is  often  another  phase  of  good,  is  as 
necessary  to  its  existence,  and  belongs  as  much  to  the  whole  scheme 
of  things,  as  that  the  tropics  should  blaze  and  Lapland  should  freeze  in 
order  that  there  may  be  a  temperate  zone.  He  conducts  us  through 
the  whole  world,  but  we  tender,  inexperienced  souls  scream  out  at 
every  strange  grasshopper  that  jumps  across  our  path,  "  O,  good  sir,  the 
monster  will  swallow  us ! " 

He  grasped  life  as  a  whole,  not  in  things  or  parts,  and  found 
everywhere  in  this  complex  drama  sources  of  enlightenment, 
entertainment,  and  elevation.  From  the  manifold  world  which 
he  presents  to  us  we  may  get  that  which  we  are  fitted  to  ap- 
propriate ;  he  does  not  give  us  a  ready-made  product.  His 
own  life  was  most  typical  of  what  humanity  may  accomplish. 
He  founded  no  school,  but  liberated  his  age  by  giving  it  inward 
freedom  through  truth.  Says  Carlyle  : 

And  knowest  thou  no  Prophet,  even  in  the  vesture,  environment,  and 
dialect  of  this  age  ?  None  to  whom  the  Godlike  had  revealed  itself, 
through  all  meanest  and  highest  forms  of  the  Common ;  and  by  him  been 
again  prophetically  revealed :  in  whose  inspired  melody,  even  in  these 
rag-gathering  and  rag-burning  days,  Man's  Life  again  begins,  were  it  but 
afar  off,  to  be  divine  ?  Knowest  thou  none  such  ?  I  know  him,  and 
name  him — Goethe4 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Goethe  was  opposed  to  a  false 
liberalism  :  "  All  that  sets  free  the  soul,  without  at  the  same 
time  giving  us  self-mastery,  is  destructive."  §  In  his  scheme 
of  life  he  demanded  full  scope  for  faith  and  will. 

Goethe  is  a  great  observer  and  recorder  of  the  facts  of  life, 
rather  than  the  dogmatic  exponent  of  a  rigid  systematic 

*  Transcripts  and  Studies,  p.  252. 
t  Zum  Shakespeares  Tag,  1771. 
t  Sartor  Resartus,  book  iii,  ch.  vil. 
§  Quoted  by  Harnack,  p.  202. 


1899.]  Goethe.  773 

philosophy.  He  drew  wealth  from  all  systems,  but  was  sub- 
ject to  none.  While  there  are  apparent  contradictions  there 
is  a  consistent  tendency.  "  I  never  imagine,"  he  says,  "  that 
I  have  compassed  the  truth,  but  one  thing  I  know,  I  am  headed 
toward  the  truth."  *  Says  Professor  Miinsterberg :  "  God 
and  man,  nature  and  the  mind,  law  and  freedom,  science  and 
art,  religion  and  history,  social  questions  and  ethics,  were 
within  the  range  of  his  earnest  study."  Although  his  inter- 
est was  directed  more  toward  life  and  action  than  toward  spec- 
ulation, he  gathered  a  rich  store  of  golden  fruits  of  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  society,  and  thought,  and  a  body  of  practical 
synthetic  philosophy  which  he  honors  his  reader  by  imparting 
with  utter  sincerity.  Many  a  youth  who  is  paralyzed  by  com- 
ing gradually  or  suddenly  to  perceive  that  he  possesses  only 
an  empirical  grasp  upon  the  problem  of  life  might  have  been 
saved  this  most  bitter  experience  had  Goethe  been  his  school- 
master. Especially  in  our  country,  where  sophistry  so  often 
passes  for  demonstration  ;  where  tumid  rhetoric  is  substituted 
for  reasoning ;  where  romantic  sentimentality,  emotional  ap- 
peals, and  crude  generalizations  often  serve  for  facts ;  where 
the  radical  delusion  so  often  prevails  that  any  man  can  be  any- 
thing he  elects  to  be  or  gets  others  to  elect  him  to  be — there 
is  wholesome  instruction  to  be  gained  from  this  superbly  en- 
dowed student  of  life ;  and  it  is  significant  for  us  that  his 
final  theoretical  result  so  closely  approaches  the  one  to  which 
we  are  also  tending,  namely,  that  the  aesthetic  ideal  is  to  be 
postponed  to  the  practical,  that  the  welfare  of  society  is  not 
to  be  reached  through  abstract  speculation  but  by  labor  and 
accomplishment.  Goethe  admitted  that  there  were  certain  in- 
soluble problems,  but  held  that  there  must  be  a  practical  de- 
cision in  regard  to  laws  of  conduct,  and  the  sum  of  his  ethics 
is,  Do  faithfully  and  enthusiastically  your  own  duty  to  society 
each  day.  The  perception  of  truth  is  not  enough  ;  it  must  be 
embodied,  acted  out,  applied  The  highest  work  of  art  is  the 
individual  life.  Truth  can  be  reached  only  by  the  most  con- 
scientious endeavor  in  practice,  and  the  restless  striving  and 
yearning  of  the  individual  must  be  brought  to  a  steady,  pur- 
poseful activity  for  the  good  of  all  men,  and  not  for  oneself. 

•  An  Schultz,  Oct.  25,  1820. 


774  Methodist  Iteview.  [September, 

The  law  of  unselfish  love  to  one's  fellow-men  is  the  corner- 
stone of  Goethe's  philosophy  of  life.  This  self-surrender  and 
self-limitation  is  the  release  from  the  feverish  quest  after  all 
knowledge  and  all  enjoyment ;  it  is  the  practical  philosophy 
which  Goethe  preached  most  insistently.* 

How  noble  is  Goethe's  counsel  to  young  poets  f  (contrasted, 
for  instance,  with  Heine's  melodious  wails  of  the  spoiled  child 
over  certain  forms  of  happiness  that  he  has  missed) : 

When,  on  entering  into  active,  vigorous,  and,  at  times,  disagreeable 
life,  where  we  must  all  feel  that  we  are  in  fact  but  dependent  parts  of  a 
great  whole,  we  clamor  for  all  the  earlier  dreams,  wishes,  hopes,  and 
good  things  of  our  youthful  fairy  tales,  then  the  Muse  takes  her  leave 
and  seeks  the  companionship  of  the  one  who  cheerfully  practices  resig- 
nation and  who  easily  recovers  his  serenity ;  who  knows  how  to  get  some 
good  gain  from  every  season  of  the  year;  who  concedes  its  advantages 
to  the  skating  rink,  as  well  as  to  the  garden  of  roses ;  who  quiets  his 
own  sorrows  and  looks  resolutely  about  him  to  find  an  opportunity  of 
alleviating  another's  pain  or  promoting  another's  joy. 

Utterly  misleading  is  Professor  Dowden's  charge  that 
Goethe  "neither  taught  nor  practiced  the  surrender  of  one's 
inmost  personality  to  something  higher  than  the  Ego,"  £  for 
this  is  precisely  what  the  lesson  of  existence  did  teach  him, 
and  which  he  proclaims  as  the  first  rule  for  the  conduct  of 
life.  §  He  enjoins  resignation,  submission,  and  surrender,  not 
as  leading  to  quietism  or  the  extirpation  of  one's  powers,  but 
that  one  may  give  himself  to  new  and  better  activities ;  not 
prohibition  and  omission  for  their  own  sake,  but  as  clearing 
the  way  for  continuous,  positive  action.  This  ideal  of  devoted 
labor  and  service  "he  taughte,  and  first  he  folwed  it 
himselve." 

As  a  young  man  he  writes  to  his  mother  from  Weimar,  [ 
"  I  have  all  that  a  man  can  wish,  a  life  in  which  I  daily  exer- 
cise my  powers,  and  daily  make  some  growth."  And  in  his 
diary  of  about  the  same  time  he  says,  T  "  The  pressure  of 

practical  duties  is  most  excellent  for  the  soul ;  when  it  lays 

\ 

*  Windelband,  Strassburger  Goethevortrdge,  p.  103. 

+  In  Kunst  und  Altertum. 

$  The  Case  against  Goethe,  Cosmopolis,  ii,  641. 

§  Comp.  Marieribad  Elegy. 

fl  August  9, 1779. 

T  January  13, 1779. 


1899.]  Goethe.  775 

them  aside  it  refreshes  itself  more  freely,  and  really  enjoys 
life."  Step  by  step  throughout  his  long  life  he  strove  up- 
ward in  action,  enthusiasm,  and  accomplished  duty.  He  wel- 
comed all  that  could  help  his  growth,  even  harsh  and  bitter 
criticism.  He  was  a  model,  self-sacrificing  servant  of  the 
commonwealth.  In  his  latest  estimate  Herman  Grimm  says 
of  him,  "  He  always  considered  his  civic  duties  as  the  highest 
and  most  binding,  and  unreservedly  put  all  other  subjects  of 
thought  and  action  into  a  secondary  place."  *  "  Who  bade 
Goethe  superintend  buildings,  control  the  military  chest,  regu- 
late public  roads  ? "  asks  Professor  Dowden,  sneeringly.  There 
is  probably  no  other  explanation  than  in  the  high  demands  of 
Goethe's  own  noble  nature,  comparable  in  this  to  Milton's, 
whose  unselfishness  called  forth  Wordsworth's  tribute  : 

And  yet  thy  heart 
The  lowliest  duties  on  herself  did  lay. 

His  theory  of  the  welfare  of  the  State  demanded  the  faithful 
performance  of  the  special  duty  of  each  man,  from  the  sov- 
ereign to  the  day  laborer,  f  He  had,  to  be  sure,  a  mistrust  of 
the  ability  of  the  masses  to  conduct  personally  the  functions 
of  government  in  a  scientific  way ;  and  there  are  not  wanting 
later  observers  who,  like  Amiel,  \  suspect  that  "the  modern 
zeal  for  equality  is  a  disguised  hatred  which  tries  to  pass  itself 
off  as  love."  He  demanded,  however,  the  association  of  all 
men  for  the  common  good,  and  in  Wilhelm  Meisters  Wander- 
jahre  he  forecast  theoretically,  and  with  profound  political 
sagacity,  a  new  socialistic  era  in  which  every  individual  shall 
be  educated  for  the  service  of  the  State. 

A  word  as  to  his  ethics  of  the  sexes,  a  matter  in  which  we 
must  not  be  misunderstood  as  tolerating  for  a  single  instant 
loose  laws  of  conduct.  Absolute  purity  is  the  fundamental 
safeguard  of  humanity's  highest  interests,  and  laxity  here  is 
the  most  fatal  of  all  destructive  social  errors.  But  let  us  not 
lose  all  sense  of  proportion  or  justice  in  dealing  with  the  indi- 
vidual Goethe.  Luther,  in  criticising  the  style  of  certain 
fathers  of  the  Church,  says,  "  The  good  fathers  lived  better 

»  Das  XIX  Jahrhundert  in  Bildnissen,  ii,  317. 

f  Harnack,  p.  201. 

I  Journal,  December  4, 1863. 


776  Methodist  Review.  [September, 

than  they  wrote/'  *  But  it  is,  alas !  even  more  true  that  many 
of  the  world's  most  cherished  benefactors  have  written  better 
than  they  lived.  "We  do  not  ban  all  the  works  of  Shakespeare 
or  Burns  or  Solomon,  or  altogether  repudiate  the  high  civic 
services  of  some  of  the  most  efficient  statesmen,  because  of 
their  personal  ethical  defects ;  nor  do  we  utterly  execrate  the 
memory  of  Milton  because  his  theories  of  divorce  were  loose 
and  destructive.  Loquacious  critics  forget  that  the  adored 
Schiller,  who  found  in  happy  marriage  with  a  noble  woman 
a  full  solution  of  his  moral  difficulties,  exhibited  a  vehement 
advocacy  of  beastliness  in  his  earlier  poems  which  finds  no 
parallel  in  Goethe.  The  latter's  Leipzig  and  Roman  periods, 
especially,  countenanced  a  destructive  social  order,  and  this 
fact  cannot  be  too  strongly  condemned  and  deplored ;  on  the 
other  hand,  no  man  has  done  more  to  glorify  the  highest  bond 
of  social  order,  a  great  pure  passionate  love — a  love  which 
leads  to  self-sacrifice  and  disciplinary  development,  a  love  un- 
speakably sacred  to  every  man  who 

Remembers  how  his  father's  eyes 
Once  on  his  mother  used  to  brood. 

For  this  reason  Goethe's  teachings  in  regard  to  the  relations 
of  the  sexes  are,  in  the  main,  wholesome  and  commendable. 
Humanity,  in  its  lower  stages,  has  required  much  emphasis  of 
checks  and  safeguards.  The  fire,  which  warms  and  cheers 
and  enlivens,  contains  the  possibilities  of  the  most  fearful  dis- 
aster. No  house  was  ever  swept  from  its  foundations  by  a 
feeble  rill,  but  shall  this  be  preferred  to  the  powerful  stream, 
able  to  bear  along  the  freights  of  a  nation  ?v  There  is  a  dis- 
trust of  the  stronger  human  emotions,  not  entirely  unknown 
in  America,  which  impoverishes  life  and  countenances  much 
misery;  which  everlastingly  preaches  repression,  instead  of 
going  on  to  perfection  ;  which  advocates  the  false  and  morbid 
thought  that  all  sensuous  love  is  sinful ;  and  which  makes  one 
believe  that  there  may  be  even  a  need,  in  some  places,  of 
reviving  the  doctrine  of  the  rehabilitation  de  la  chair,  not 
in  the  devilish  and  degrading  sense  of  "  Young  Germany," 
of  Walt  Whitman  and  Le  Gallienne,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
Martin  Luther  or  of  Goethe  in  Hermann  und  Dorothea^  to 

*  Tischreden,  iv,  373. 


1899.]  Goethe.  777 

which  work  we  refer  critics  for  a  German  picture  of  normal 
social  life. 

Professor  Windelband  declares  that  no  one  can  estimate 
Goethe  who  fails  to  recognize  how  essential  an  element  of  his 
character  was  his  religious  feeling.*  It  was  this  feeling 
which  brought  him  into  opposition  to  the  absolute  individual- 
ism of  the  Storm  and  Stress  period.  There  had  been  a  potent 
atmosphere  of  religious  influence  in  Goethe's  intimate  sur- 
roundings from  youth  up.  His  strong  friendship  for  such 
persons  as  Jung-Stilling,  Fraulein  von  Klettenberg,  and  Lava- 
ter  illustrates  these  tendencies.  His  religion  settled  into  a 
conviction  that  man  is  shut  in  and  determined  by  a  higher, 
purer,  unfathpmable,  eternal  power,  and  that  he  must  gladly 
and  reverently  surrender  himself  to  its  will.  Prayer  should 
chiefly  be  for  lofty  thoughts  and  a  pure  heart,  and  its  result 
should  be  submission  and  gratitude.  His  belief  in  God  was 
more  directed  toward  the  manifestations  of  his  power  in  good- 
ness, reason,  and  love  than  toward  formal  abstract  theories  as 
to  his  existence  and  personal  nature.  He  believed  in  a  deep 
religious  reverence  as  the  foundation  of  all  character  and  use- 
fulness. A  dominating  consciousness  of  union  with  God  is 
taught  by  him  to  be  indispensable  for  peace  and  successful 
activity.  He  believed  in  immortality  as  the  logical  continu- 
ance of  the  exercise  of  powers  that  had  been  developed  by 
strenuous  fidelity  through  life.  "  Those  who  have  no  hope  of 
a  future  life,"  he  said  to  Eckermann,  "  are  already  dead  for 
this  one."  f  His  reverence  for  the  Bible  made  him  distinctly 
averse  to  the  higher  criticism.  He  called  himself  a  Christian, 
and  maintained  a  worshipful  reverence  toward  Christ  as  the 
divine  manifestation  of  the  highest  principle  of  virtue.  "  Let 
intellectual  culture,"  he  said,  "  advance  as  much  as  it  may,  it 
will  not  get  beyond  the  loftiness  and  moral  culture  of  Chris- 
tianity." $ 

His  immense  services  to  the  intellectual  life  of  Europe  can- 
not be  recounted  here.  He  called  German  poetry  into  being ; 
his  diction  supplied  his  nation  with  an  art-implement  such  as 
it  had  vainly  been  striving  to  acquire  since  the  days  of  the 

» Strassburger  Goethevortrdge,  p.  96. 
t  Conversations,  1,  85. 
i  Conversations  with,  Miiller,  April  7, 1830. 
51 FIFTH  SERIES,  VOL.  XV. 


778  Methodist  fieview.  [September, 

Keformation  ;  the  magic  inspiration  which  he  gave  to  the 
whole  tribe  of  younger  poets,  such  as  R-uckert,  Geibel,  Platen, 
and  Heine,  can  never  be  measured.  In  an  entirely  different 
field  he  gave  a  great  widening  to  the  scope  and  method  of 
the  study  of  the  natural  sciences.  Despite  his  unfortunate 
contest  with  Sir  Isaac  Newton  in  the  field  of  physics,  modern 
thought  concedes  that  he  laid  for  all  time  the  foundations  for 
the  physiological  and  psychological  study  of  color.*  He  is 
the  transmitter  of  Germany's  contribution  to  the  common 
wealth  of  modern  civilization,  representing  its  "prophetic 
foresight,  its  clear-eyed  perception  of  things  as  they  are,  its 
mathematical  profundity,  physical  accuracy,  philosophical  ele- 
vation, keenness  of  intellect,  mobility  of  poetic  imagination, 
and  harmless  enjoyment  of  nature."  f  HG  ^8  a  colossal  mani- 
festation of  creative  power.  Napoleon,  after  looking  at  him 
attentively,  said,  "  Vous  etesun  homme  ;  "  and  it  is  chiefly  this 
fact  that  renders  Goethe  worthy  of  the  earnest  study  of  man- 
kind. 

*  Jacob  Stilling,  Strassburger  Goethevortrage,  147,  ff. 
t  Goethe,  in  Farbenlehre,  historischer  Teil. 


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